Buildings and Bridges
by freiheitfuehlen
Summary: Companion piece to Time Heals Every Wonder, but a short story that stands very well on its own. Posted as part of the London Nights at the River Thames Series. Derek finally deals with some of the most painful events of his past. Meredith, Derek -- A/D


**A/N**: This story was originally planned to be a companion to my other story Time Heals Every Wonder in which we learned that Addison wrote a book about her life in order to deal with her past. It stands very well on its own. All you need to know is that the parts which look like this _"[...]xxx[...]"_are excerpts from Addison's book. It is indeed a lot longer than the rest of my drabbles. It's been sitting on my computer for over a year, so I thought this to be a good opportunity to post it. Prompt was **Farewells**.

**Buildings and Bridges**

"Maybe," he told Joe, bringing the glass of scotch to his lips and tasting the amber liquid. He stopped himself before he could say something that might have been able to let his house of cards crash - a carefully built castle of avoidance.

_What if I threw away the best thing that has ever happened to me, the love of my life and 15 years of memories for a rush of testosteron?_

Joe looked over, studying the man who had been sitting at his bar counter for close to an hour and who was still sipping his first drink. Scotch on ice. By now, Joe guessed, it was rather ice on Scotch and an awfully watery beverage. Every once in a while the dark haired man would bring the glass to his lips and let the tiniest bit of liqueur touch his tongue before he would bring down the Boston glass back to its destined place in front of him while tracing its outlines. Derek was lost in his own thoughts. The wrinkles on his forehead and the occasional sighs of disbelief were hinting at such confusion of the mind. Derek's eyes that usually sparkled and swept away with them the innocent and the believers by the sheer force of their gaze, those eyes were staring blankly ahead. A distinct sadness hovered in the dullness of the situation.

Derek Shepherd looked beaten. McDreamy looked like he had been robbed; someone had taken his horse and armour. The knight had disappeared and left its shadow in the wake.

"_Don't," Meredith said sternly while holding up her hand to silence Derek. The elevator doors closed as Meredith bent forwards to push the level 2 button a little harder._

_Derek sighed and moved to the back of the elevator leaning tiredly against the wall. He felt too exhausted to have this conversation. Above all, though, he was still too confused and irritated himself. It had barely been 24 hours since he had found out about Addison's book and ever since he's found himself on an emotional roller coaster ride. All the hurt, anger and grief that he had hidden so well for the past years started bubbling up to the surface like water of a newly discovered spring and engulfed him in a tight hug._

"_Meredith;" Derek sighed heavily, "can we please not do this now?"_

_Meredith snorted at his words and turned her head to glare at him."Do not do what, Derek? Talk? I don't want to hear what you have to say, when everything that you've been doing was lie anyway."_

_Derek gaped at her. "What?!"_

"_You have a daughter," Meredith said, with hurt evident in her voice." You have a daughter with her."_

_Derek was silent. He did not want to talk about Sarah. He knew that he had to eventually, but when he did come to terms with his hurt and grief he might need to talk to someone who was either part of that life, the life he had left behind in New York and the family he had lost that November seven years ago, or someone who had no connections to this time of his life at all._

_Meredith belonged in none of these categories. She had not been part of his life for the last fifteen years like Addison had, but she sure was more than just someone. Meredith had changed his life and had brought him back from rock bottom. She had been his breath of fresh air and his second chance at love. She held a special place in his heart and she deserved better. _

_Derek knew that he could not be the man that Meredith had made him out to be: McDreamy. She had put him on a pedestal. By now, though, Derek was struggling to keep his balance._

"_I asked you, Derek," she said quietly, her voice filled with the million different emotions she was tormented by. "When Mark came to Seattle, I asked you if you believed things would have turned out differently if you'd had kids. Remember that?" She moved a step towards him, invading his space in an attempt to get him to respond, finally to speak up and help clear up the confusion in her mind. "You said no."_

"_No," Derek replied calmly. He lifted his head and looked her in the eyes, showing her the pain those last hours had brought to the surface from a place that he thought he had long buried deep down._

"_Derek..." Meredith demanded, her voice growing more agitated, but she was interrupted by Derek._

"_I didn't." He paused, taking a deep breath and steadying his voice. "I didn't lie to you. I said I didn't know if things could have been different."_

"_How would it not have been different, Derek? Everything would have been different." Meredith sighed, part of her realized in that moment that maybe Derek never belonged with her, that maybe she truly was only the breath of fresh air and all she did those last couple of months was hanging on to a thread of hope.  
_

_Derek was quiet. He knew he had no answers for Meredith. He had nothing to justify his silence and secrecy with. No words, no phrases and certainly no reasoning. He simply looked at her with his big blue eyes._

"_I guess," Meredith whispered her voice hoarse and weak, "that's it then."_

_Resignating Meredith picked up the purse that had slipped off her shoulder and fallen onto the floor only mere moments ago. Slowly she turned her back to Derek and started walking away without once glancing back._

"_Wait Meredith," Derek lifted his hand and placed it on Meredith's upper arm, "I'm sorry."_

_What it sounded like was 'I'm sorry I lied to you and that I hurt you.' But what he truly meant was 'I'm sorry I couldn't be the man you thought I was or was capable of being. More so I am sorry that you met a man that had already given away his heart and soul to a family that had long been since and still haunted him.'_

_Meredith sighed, "I know you are," she paused when she felt tears welling up in her eyes. "If I didn't, Derek, I wouldn't have fallen in love with you.' Meredith lifted her hand up to cup his cheek. She let her thumb brush softly over his lips. Derek pressed a tender kiss to the palm of her hand._

"_You must believe me, Meredith. I do love you. You and me, that was real. I just thought I could be 'that man' for you, have 'it' with you. I failed you. I am sorry."_

_Meredith smiled weakly at him, "Don't be. You are 'that man'. Just not for me."_

_Derek opened his mouth to reply but was cut short by Meredith's fingers on his lips._

"_Ssh," She lowered her voice to a whisper and moved closer to him. "I feel horrible. Every moment of today I have spent being mad at you instead of myself. I have held onto you for far too long and I just finally let go. I just wish it wouldn't have needed such terrible circumstances. I love you, Derek, and because I do I will never want to see you as hurt as I have seen you today. Go, please go and make peace with your past. I have carried the past with me for far too long. It will break you apart."_

_With these words spoken to the man that Meredith had fallen in love with all those years ago she walked away. Determined not to look back and to make peace with this chapter of her past as well as she asked Derek to do._

_With one final glance over her shoulder and a half turn, she said, "I am incredibly sorry for your loss, Derek. I am sure you would have been a great father."_

"_Thank you," Derek said giving her as much of a smile as he could muster._

"Some days," Derek started again speaking slowly as if he was contemplating every single word that left his mouth, so he would not get caught in misinterpretation.  
"I wake up and I wonder where I am. I get up and look in the mirror and it scares the hell out of me. Some days I wonder how I ended up in this life that I don't belong in."

"_[...] Home. What is 'home'? The saying goes 'home is where the heart is'. I have made a home for myself here in Los Angeles. A place that I come back to at night to rest, to re-energize and sometimes to hide from the world when I curl up on my couch with my favourite novel and a cup of tea. But when I walk through the endless streets of New York City whose concretes aren't lit up by the sun even in the hottest days of summer and I smell the air, a mixture of gas, coffee and a whiff of Greta's pancakes two blocks down from Central Park, I feel complete. New York is my home. New York holds the memories of the happiest times of my life as well as the saddest. I hold these moments and more so these special people that have imprinted themselves on me close to my heart. No matter where I am, I always carry home with me at all times and the people I love. [...]"_

Derek rummaged in his pockets to take out his wallet. Carefully he took out an old photo that was ripped at the edges and the colour had faded from some of the parts over the last couple of years. In the photo Addison was holding their little daughter Sarah close to her heart. It was one of the good days post birth when everything pointed towards recovery. One of Addison's hands was steadying Sarah's head whereas the other was placed on the small of her back to caress her muscles softly. Addison smiled sleepily at her newborn. Her red hair was matted from the stress and exhaustion of the last couple of days. Nonetheless she looked absolutely content in this photo with her little girl close to her heart and her husband only mere meters from her taking a photo of the two most important women in his life. Hardly could he have known that not only was he taking a photo, more so he was capturing a spirit, the last happy moments of the Shepherd family.

"I'm a father," Derek paused and lifted the glass of Scotch to his lips. Before he took a sip, though, he continued quietly with as much strength as he could muster, "I am the father to the smartest and brightest and most beautiful baby girl."

Derek took a sip of his drink and sat the glass down on the counter. He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed deeply.

Joe looked at the man in front of him with confusion. He raised his eyebrows in demand of answers to the questions rising up in his mind.

Derek turned the photo around and pushed it towards Joe who took it in his hands and studied it closely.

"Sarah. Her name is Sarah Elaina Shepherd." Derek looked up from the scratched wood of the counter and into Joe's eyes. His own eyes failing to betray his grief and pain, Derek said sadly "well was. She would have turned seven early in November. She never got the chance to even live, Joe."

Silently Joe poured Derek another drink and one for himself. He put them both on the counter and reached out for Derek's shoulder to squeeze it in encouragement; A wordless gesture of empathy and support.

"Here's to Sarah. The smartest, brightest and most beautiful baby girl who has a father who loves her with the whole of his hard and here's also to the daughter that watches from far above that her parents are safe and live twice as intense and make twice as many memories. Here's to the girl who is greatly missed and who lives through her dad and through her mom every day of their lives."

Joe clinked his glass to Derek's who looked up at the man in front of him with tears in his eyes. He mouthed a thank you and took a big gulp from his drink.

"Do you believe in heaven, Joe?"

Derek let his fingers run around the top of his glass.

"I like to think I do. Do I believe in paradise and God awaiting me? No. I do believe, though, that souls live on and that we are reunited with the ones we leave behind when we shed our human forms. So most times I do and it helps me find peace in life."

"I like that. I want to believe in it, too. I need to. I can't accept that she keeps slipping from my mind piece by piece. I can't quite remember what she looked like when I last held her. I mean without all the tubes coming out of her. She was so little."

"_[...] Parents should never have to bury their own children. There is something so brutal in the way your own child, flesh and blood of yours which has grown inside of you for nine months and which has become not only part of your world, but more so become the centre of it, is taken from the world that you live in. It shakes it. It breaks it. It tears it apart in a hundred million pieces. [...]"_

Derek took back the photo from Joe and held it close. His right thumb brushed softly against the part of the photo that held Addison and Sarah. He sighed deeply.

"She looked so much like Addison. I had always hoped she would look like her mother, with silky strawberry red hair, these bright green-blue eyes and maybe my smile."

Joe was quiet now. He did not know how to console the man in front of him or take some of the grief away. He could not even imagine if that was possible at all by someone who was not part of that life in any way. Joe just stood and listened.

Derek Shepherd felt lost. He was lost in a city that he had claimed was what he wanted, a symbol of his life's turning point and a symbol of his breath of fresh air.


End file.
